Granted Patent B1

US 12,739,212 · App. 17/188,763 · Granted Sep 15, 2026

Inventor: Naveen Kumar Agrawal (Bellevue, WA)

Assignee: Avalara, Inc.

H04L47/82G06F16/24564

Abstract

Claims (53)

1 . A computer system including at least:

one or more processors; and

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, result in operations including at least:

receiving a settings request at an online software platform (OSP) from a client for an electronic service of producing one or more resources for a dataset that the client will provide subsequently to the OSP, the dataset representing a relationship instance of the client with a secondary entity, the relationship instance being associated with one or more domains, the one or more resources to be produced according to one or more first digital rules presently stored in a first memory;

providing a first selectable special option to the client to additionally have the OSP produce one or more additional resources for the dataset according to a future digital rule, in which the future digital rule is based on a future rule that is generated by and received from a source external to and remote from the client and the OSP;

receiving first input indicating whether or not the client has selected the first special option, in which the future digital rule is not yet specified and not yet stored in a second memory at a time when the first input is received;

receiving a second digital rule;

storing the second digital rule in the second memory;

then receiving the dataset from the client;

producing a first resource based on applying the one or more first digital rules to the dataset; and

if the first special option has been selected, then:

recognizing that the second digital rule is applicable to the dataset;

recognizing that the selected first special option indicates the second digital rule as the future digital rule;

further producing a second resource based on applying the second digital rule to the dataset to produce a resource component and based on adding the resource component to the first resource; and

transmitting a response to the client regarding the second resource,

else if the first special option has not been selected, then:

not producing the second resource; and

transmitting a response to the client regarding the first resource.

2 . The computer system of claim 1 in which the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further result in operations including:

receiving from the client an earlier dataset prior to storing the second digital rule in the second memory;

producing an earlier resource based on applying the one or more first digital rules to the earlier dataset;

responsive to the first special option having been selected, recognizing that the selected first special option does not indicate any rule as the future digital rule; and

transmitting an earlier response to the client regarding the earlier resource.

3 . The computer system of claim 1 in which the first memory is the second memory.

4 . The computer system of claim 1 in which the second digital rule is stored in the second memory by the OSP.

5 . The computer system of claim 1 in which:

the settings request identifies an item,

the relationship instance is about the item, and

the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further result in operations including:

selecting the one or more first digital rules and the second digital rule as applicable to the dataset also based on the item.

6 . The computer system of claim 1 in which the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further result in operations including:

providing a second selectable special option to the client to additionally have the OSP produce one or more additional resource components for the dataset by applying to the dataset a presently applicable digital rule that has become applicable to an item associated with the relationship instance since the request was received; and

receiving second input indicating whether or not the client has selected the second special option, and

in which the second resource is produced based on the second input.

7 . The computer system of claim 1 in which the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further result in operations including:

in response to the storing the second digital rule, searching for items to which the second digital rule applies;

as a result of the search, identifying clients associated with respective ones of the items and that have requested the OSP to produce respective resources for datasets of the clients;

of the identified clients, determining which have selected, prior to storing the second digital rule, the first special option;

for each of the determined clients, pre-associating the second digital rule with the respective item to which the second digital rule applies;

receiving datasets from one or more of the determined clients representing respective relationship instances of the determined clients with one or more respective secondary entities; and

producing additional resources according to the first special option for one or more of the datasets received from the determined clients based on the pre-association.

8 . The computer system of claim 7 in which the identifying clients associated with respective ones of the items includes:

determining that a particular client is associated with a respective item based on the respective item being a subject of one or more relationship instances represented by one or more datasets previously received from the particular client.

9 . The computer system of claim 7 in which the identifying clients associated with respective ones of the items includes:

determining that a particular client is associated with a respective item based on the particular client declaring to the OSP that the respective item is associated with relationship instances of the particular client.

10 . The computer system of claim 7 in which the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further result in operations including:

in response to the identifying clients, for each identified client, transmitting a notification to the identified client that the identified client is associated with the respective item to which the second digital rule applies;

in conjunction with transmitting the respective notifications, providing a second selectable special option to the identified clients to additionally have the OSP produce one or more additional resource components according to the second digital rule, for respective datasets that were received from the identified clients previous to the storing the second digital rule;

receiving second input indicating acceptance of the second selectable special option from one or more of the identified clients;

based on the acceptance, producing one or more additional resource components, according to the second digital rule, for respective datasets that were received from the one or more identified clients previous to the storing the second digital rule; and

for each of the one or more of the identified clients:

producing a respective additional resource, based on the additional resource components, for a respective dataset that was received from the client previous to the storing the second digital rule; and

transmitting a respective response regarding the respective additional resource to the client.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (1)

References Cited (14)